Guest whatever by David Middleton
The New Language of Climate Change
Scientists and meteorologists on the front lines of the climate wars are testing a new strategy to get through to the skeptics and outright deniers.
By BRYAN BENDER January 27, 2019
PHOENIX—Leading climate scientists and meteorologists are banking on a new strategy for talking about climate change: Take the politics out of it.
That means avoiding the phrase “climate change,” so loaded with partisan connotations as it is. Stop talking about who or what is most responsible. And focus instead on what is happening and how unusual it is—and what it is costing communities.
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That was a main takeaway at the American Meteorological Society’s annual meeting this month, where top meteorologists and environmental scientists…
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The hope is to persuade the small but powerful minority that stands in the way of new policies to mitigate climate change’s worst long-term effects—as well as the people who vote for them—that something needs to be done or their own livelihoods and health will be at stake.
The new language taking root is meant to instill this sense of urgency about what is happening in ways to which everyday citizens can relate—without directly blaming it on human activity…
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“Is it humans or is it not? We really need to get beyond that,” Bernadette Woods Placky, an Emmy award-winning meteorologist who directs the Climate Matters program at Climate Central, told me.
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“They see it firsthand,” Robert Mark Simpson, a professor of geography at the University of Tennessee at Martin, told me. “There is a sort of acknowledgment that the climate is changing. They just don’t think humans are that impactful. [They think blaming humans is] a conspiracy to overthrow the U.S. economy.”
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I asked Grandy that question. He believes recognition is just Step One and hopes that once doubters see climate change as the dire threat it is, it will be easier for them to get on board with the only solutions believed to be able to rein it in: phasing out fossil fuels and scaling back our carbon footprint.
After all, he said, climate change “is happening whether they like it or not. If they ignore it, it is still going to happen.”
I’m not sure if I excerpted the dumbest or least dumbest bits of this article. There’s not much dynamic range between the dumbest and least dumbest bits.
I got a big kick out of this… “Scientists *and* meteorologists”… Aren’t meteorologists scientists? I’m pretty sure they are, except for the meteorologists quoted in this article.
Then there’s this… “avoiding the phrase ‘climate change’”… Weren’t these same people vilifying President Trump and several Republican governors for doing exactly that? Avoiding the phrase “climate change”???
“Is it humans or is it not? We really need to get beyond that”… WTF??? We’ve been telling you that for decades…
“[They think blaming humans is] a conspiracy to overthrow the U.S. economy”… Nonsense! It’s a conspiracy to overthrow all capitalist economies, not just the U.S. …
“This is probably the most difficult task we have ever given ourselves, which is to intentionally transform the economic development model, for the first time in human history”, Ms Figueres stated at a press conference in Brussels.
“This is the first time in the history of mankind that we are setting ourselves the task of intentionally, within a defined period of time to change the economic development model that has been reigning for at least 150 years, since the industrial revolution. That will not happen overnight and it will not happen at a single conference on climate change, be it COP 15, 21, 40 – you choose the number. It just does not occur like that. It is a process, because of the depth of the transformation.”
Do these “scientists and meteorologists” really think that all they need to do is to redefine the language?
This one is priceless…
“[I]t will be easier for them to get on board with the only solutions believed to be able to rein it in: phasing out fossil fuels and scaling back our carbon footprint.”
— Jim Gandy, chief meteorologist for the CBS affiliate in Columbia, S.C.
Hey Jimbo! How did you get from Columbia SC to Phoenix AZ? Did you walk? Did you ride a bicycle? Did you drive a 100% electric vehicle, powered by 100% Unicorn farts?
Regarding phasing out fossil fuels…
Phasing out fossil fuels?
